Most mornings waking up in the forests of Vancouver Island began with the pitter-patter of rain. In Port Renfrew, the room where I was staying was attached to a high-ceilinged bathroom with a generous skylight that filled the space with natural light and the ambient sound of falling rain. It was a great way to wake up. I didn’t set an alarm even one time.

I need to give a massive shout-out to my mom, who accompanied me on this trip. Like I said in my first article of this series in Vancouver, I had really been struggling with some intense anxiety-related issues leading up to this trip. So, although this trip might seem tame in the context of this site where we (myself and you, the reader) have also backpacked solo through militia-governed Burma and crossed military checkpoints along the Pakistani border in India’s turbulent Kashmir region, this was actually much scarier for me than all of that. I felt like I had to cut my teeth all over again on this trip, so I was grateful to be doing it in such a green, rejuvenating part of the world alongside somebody who makes me feel safe. Thanks, mom.

Hiking The Vancouver Island Coastline

In the last article, we checked out Sombrio beach, which I think is likely the most easily-accessible stretch of coastline in the Port Renfrew area, and also the place that resembles the classic “beach” (i.e. sand, waves, etc) most closely. However, the majority of Vancouver Island’s coastline is not as easy to access and is NOT your classic sandy beach. This is a rocky, mossy, rugged, chaotic, windswept boundary zone, perpetually pounded with massive waves, riddled with lively tide pools, and entirely unaccommodating to the “beach vacation” experience. It’s also extremely cool.

Today we’re going to hike to 2 destinations along the BC coast: Botany Bay and Botanical Beach. These two pieces of coastline can be done in the same hike relatively easily, depending on your starting point. We actually did the hike twice in order to see Botany Bay at low tide. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

It was chilly and drizzling rain when we set out from the trailhead. And even while the parking lot was still within view, it already felt like I was entering another world. These forests were much denser than the ones we had seen on our brief hike to Sombrio beach. This was the temperate rainforest ecosystem I set out to experience on this trip. Exactly this.

Overhead a bright overcast sky spat rain down onto the forest all around us and illuminated the dark nooks and crannies of the tangled, gnarled forest. The rays of light that did manage to reach the dark forest floor revealed a dense carpeting of tangled roots and ancient ferns, coated with a thick layer of damp, green moss wherever possible. It was overwhelmingly verdent and lush. As I walked through the wet and winding mossy passageway, I struggled with how to capture the aura with my camera. The light was challenging. At a loss for how to fully capture the whole picture, I started by taking pictures of the details first. Moss hanging from a tree branch. Water droplets on a leaf. A mushroom growing from a moss-covered log. Twigs laying quietly on a bed of baby ferns.

Over the course of these hikes, we saw a number of wild weasels—or maybe they were minks—running amongst the mossy roots and poking their heads out along the rugged coastline. I’m sure this is an incredible environment to move through at their size. Here are some pictures from this trail.

Eventually, we saw a break in the trees off in the distance. Soon we emerged at the top of muddy, rocky decline towards a truly rugged piece of coastline. This was Botany Bay.

Botany Bay

There was a striking spit of rock jutting out into the water, on top of which sat a small grove of pine trees, clinging to life out there in the face of the North Pacific water and winds. The lighting during our visit produced quite an imposing set of pictures, but I’m sure on a nice sunny day this place would have a very different vibe.

Botany Bay is a relatively small area unless you’re willing to climb and scramble your way across a large bank of coastal rocks—which, I was. Up on the rocks, there was a wealth of seaweed and tide pools. Even as the rains cleared, the winds blew fiercely, throwing mighty waves against these rock faces. Under the cloudy gray skies, this water almost looked menacing. Even after I nudged up the color saturation on the photos I took here, it still looked like they were black & white.

We continued on from Botany Bay towards Botanical beach. The coastline was mostly inaccessible, dangerous-looking rocks, so our path wound through the forest, following the coastline wherever possible. The forest was dense, and the path was quite muddy. Some muddy areas were so long that the only way across was to hopscotch across scraps of wood that had been placed precariously but strategically so you could just barely jump from one to the next. You’ll see a picture of the shoes I wore for this hike in the gallery below; that was a bad decision. I had to do some pirouette ballet moves to avoid some of the muddy spots we came to along the way. Miraculously, I made it through the duration of this hike without incident and with clean pants, but I felt like I cheated death.

Occasionally there were breaks in the forest that allowed small expeditions out onto rock faces overlooking the ocean. Out here, bonsai trees grew wild from the cracks in the rock. This, to me, was one of the coolest details in all of this. Wild bonsai trees?? Very cool, and very fitting for this unique place.

Botanical Beach - High(ish) Tide

Eventually, we arrived at our next destination: Botanical Beach. This beach was supposed to be notable for the many tide pools that were revealed at low tide. It was easy to imagine how this place could turn into a tide-pool paradise at low tide, especially in light of finding the Octopus washed up on Sombrio beach—but, alas, when we arrived at Botanical Beach, it was close to high tide.

We still got some good exploring in, but we resolved to come back at low tide as well. Here are some pictures from our rainy day high tide wanderings.

Botanical Beach - Low(ish) Tide

The next day when we hiked back here for low tide, the unthinkable happened: the sun came out! Let me tell you, the sun completely changed the vibe of this place. It brought out colors that I would never have guessed existed in this place. It was like my eyes suddenly flipped from some sort of “noir” filter to full color.

Anyway, it was a colorful, nice day! And there were, indeed, many tide pools to explore. Each one was its own little world, bursting with life. Most of that life would crawl or swim into the closest nook or cranny as soon as they felt me lumbering towards them, but it was still very fascinating to peer into these little microcosms. I feel like Pixar could make a movie set in or amongst tide pools like these.

In these rocky pools, I got to see barnacles, mussels, seaweed, crabs, starfish, small fish, urchins, and a TON of anemones. I mean these things were everywhere. On this beach alone, I think I increased the number of anemones I had seen in my life by a factor of x100. It was tough to photograph these through the glare on the surface of the water, but I did my best.

The hiking that we did through the forest to and from these beaches was all pretty fascinating. The temperate rain forest ecosystem is very cool, but it doesn’t all feel the same. After a couple of days tromping around in the woods of British Columbia, we quickly learned how to recognize areas of “Old Growth” forest. We’re going to take a deep dive into this in the next article, but here’s the deal: when white people got to Vancouver Island, they ruined it by chopping down damn near every single tree. However, there are a select few places that never got logged, and these parts of the forest feel quite different. The trees are bigger and farther apart, the forest canopy is higher, the empty space between these trees is fully of mossy, overgrown branches. It’s much less dense, and very cool to walk through. I’ll save the majority of this for the next article, BUT we got our first taste of what “Old Growth” feels like on these hikes. And at one point I stopped to take a quick recording of the ambience in these places. This captures the ambient noise of the forest, the distant sounds of the ocean, and the trickling of small streams that had swelled from the recent rains. Check this out 👇

Here are a few more photographs from our final hike through these coastal forests stretch—in non-Old Growth areas only.

No spoilers. 😘

So, although I think I did a pretty good job of capturing the vibes of these Vancouver Island forests on camera so far, I don’t think any of these pictures really showcased what “Old Growth” forest looks like. To review, this article centered around 2 things:

More exploration of the beaches of Vancouver Island
Our initial foray into the temperate rainforests of British Columbia

NEXT, we’re going to drive inland to explore some true “Old Growth” areas. These areas will feel like something out of the movie Avatar. Have I hyped this up enough now?? STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT ARTICLE.

In the meantime, I’ll leave you with some music to accompany my budding outdoorsy-ness.